


pretty in a casket

by psychamonix



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Collars, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Murder, Revenge, They/Them Pronouns for Toby Smith | Tubbo, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29511465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychamonix/pseuds/psychamonix
Summary: Schlatt haunted him. It was the easiest way to describe it.---Quackity, but his Butcher's Army starts much, much earlier.TW: extremely toxic relationship, murder (revenge), references to/implied domestic abuse and rape. please be safe.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Floris | Fundy & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Alexis | Quackity & Jschlatt, Alexis | Quackity & Niki | Nihachu, Alexis | Quackity/Jschlatt
Comments: 4
Kudos: 105





	pretty in a casket

**Author's Note:**

> If you’re here hoping for actual shipping, you should look somewhere else. I don't want this writing to be used for that. This is not a pleasure fic; it is not meant to romanticize rape or noncon or domestic abuse or toxic relationships of any kind. This is pure dead dove discussing someone’s final breaking point. 
> 
> Also, note: this is half on the SMP and half not. There are common characters and events, but imagine that Manberg is a proper city/country with more than seven residents (purely for the sake of having nameless extras). 
> 
> Title is a Blitzkid song, check it out.

Quackity never wanted to be a trophy husband.

And he _isn’t_. He swears it to himself, repeating the words over and over in his mind, even as he stands unmoving next to Schlatt with a smile frozen on his face. Even as he shakes another hand, dips his head politely at another businessman. Even when the tie around his neck feels more like a noose and Schlatt’s arm, loose but possessive around his waist, is a chain anchoring him to the man’s side. 

He’s more like- a pet, he supposes. When he can bring himself to think about it, in those in-between moments of dinner parties and galas; on those cold, empty nights when he can hear Schlatt’s latest conquest moaning in the next room. When Tubbo slides into his bed still smelling of the wilderness, shaking and choking back tears, and Quackity’s fury practically burns as he tucks the teenager close to his side. 

Both of them- and Fundy, he supposes, though the fox has a vindictive streak that neither of them do- they’re kept like toys, little wind-up dolls for Schlatt to send out and then pull back again. Decorations, maybe, some small amusement to pass the long, boring workday. Statues to furnish the White House. But as much as it hurts, it’s better than the days when he _isn’t_ something to be overlooked. 

Quackity hates those days more than anything else in the hellhole that Manberg’s become. 

Schlatt likes to see him in gold. It’s something he’s known since the very first weeks of their courtship, back when Quackity thought it might work out alright in the end. Schlatt had needed someone quick, a pretty face to seal his presidential campaign, and Quackity had given up everything for him, knowing that he might not make it any other way. After all, politics weren’t his speciality. Bribery wasn’t his game. 

The first gift- it had been a golden collar. ( _How ironic,_ Quackity thinks bitterly. _He told me from the start, and I was stupid enough to keep listening._ ) 

It was a thick band, heavy enough to feel the weight of it around his neck, and it’d pressed into his throat when he swallowed. The dangling chains and charms slid across his skin coolly when he turned his head. Schlatt had whistled when he saw him, raising an eyebrow, and Quackity had flushed, half embarrassment and half pride. Those long fingers had trailed across the chains, hooking underneath to pull him closer. 

It’d been their first kiss. Quackity had wanted more. 

And he’d gotten it. If nothing else, Schlatt was carelessly elaborate with his money, lavishing jewelry and clothing onto Quackity even as he turned his affections elsewhere. Even now, his closet is enormous; an outfit for every day of the month and then some. He’d started giving the gifts away, whenever Schlatt was too occupied with work and women to bother keeping an eye on his troublesome husband. 

Nikki was the only one who accepted them, once everyone found out where they were coming from. She was too sweet not to. Even when Eret turned him away, their multicolor eyes dimming with apprehension and pity; even when Purpled refused to take the metal and melt it down to be used; even when George- his running mate, the last one who’d known him _before_ \- had eyed him warily and made excuses; even then, she accepted them. Quackity came to her with bruises on his arms and a swollen lip still dripping blood, holding out his hands with the golden chains spilling out of them, a leper crying to be healed. He’d begged with the last of his stubbornness, forced her to take them just so he didn’t have to touch the filthy metal anymore, and he’d seen the sympathy in her eyes. He didn’t care for it. 

But how could Quackity bring himself to care for anything at all?

Schlatt haunted him. It was the easiest way to describe it. 

He found himself jumping at small noises, turning at the slightest whisper of footsteps, the dread building thick and hot in his throat. Brushing his knuckles over his mouth as if remembering when someone else’s fist had been there, or pinching his own arm to remind himself to stay sharp. 

It doesn’t matter how sharp he stays. Schlatt has a way of finding him and dragging him back until Quackity is exactly where he wants him, molding him into the perfect companion for whatever activity he desires. 

( _Hot breath under his chin, the cold tip of a nose pressed against his skin. Teeth on his collarbone, biting until the skin breaks, and fingers pulling his hair until his neck aches with it, until he cries out- too sharp to be with pleasure. A hand pressed possessively against his sternum, hips grinding against his own, those freezing fucking fingers curled around his neck, tugging whatever harness he wanted that day._

 _The ceiling blurring in and out above him as he stares up, hoping for sleep. Tears dripping silently down his face, mean laughter from somewhere, and the sting of a playful blow landing on his cheek, on his thigh, on his ass. The smell of whiskey and cigarettes and sweat, pressed too close to ignore._ )

Quackity tries to hold on to the better times, but they’re so few and far between that he finds himself doubting his own memories. Did he imagine that picnic, the way Schlatt had scrunched up his nose and smiled at him in the filtered afternoon sunlight? Did they really spend a night just cuddling, tracing the edges of each others’ ribs; did Schlatt really promise to protect him forever? Had he even been respectable, in the beginning, or was that another lie clinging fervently to the inside of Quackity’s skull? 

He does his best to rationalize the cause. The presidency is stressful, but someone needs to uphold it, and Schlatt’s just cutthroat enough to do so. There’s a country to be run, miles upon miles of paperwork to be filed, bouquets of hands to be shaken and rooms of alliances and acquaintances to be made. Someone has to do it. 

Someone. 

Or...no one?

He hears of the anarchist; of course he does. Tubbo tells him that very first day, hidden in the back hallway by their meager offices. Their eyes are wide and hopeful, and Quackity knows they’re remembering the fall of governments long in the past and, at the same time, the simpler things. Tommy’s voice echoing over the hills and buildings. Wilbur’s smile as he strummed his guitar. 

And the next time Tubbo leaves to visit the rebels, they take Quackity along. 

The cave where they’re hiding is no colder than the White House, and it’s comforting, in a way. He knows that the fugitives are wary of him- Tubbo may be part of the cabinet, but Quackity is the _Vice President_ , the President’s husband, indicative of Schlatt’s tyranny in an entirely personal way- and he welcomes their animosity as a chance to prove himself. 

He befriends the anarchist- _Technoblade_ \- in time. The younger version of himself- that squawking, immature thing- would be at odds with the intimidating, silent manner of the looming man, who towers almost a foot above him. His younger self would have run at a mere glimpse of him. 

But now, instead of running, Quackity fights. 

The dagger is heavy in his hands. He’s not sure who it belongs to, only that Wilbur had pressed it into his grip with enthusiasm, those newly wild eyes peering straight at him. Leaving the cave, the cold kiss of the handle pressing into his calf above the holster, he’d felt dangerous. Like he could do anything. 

Like, for the first time in this long, piece-of-shit life he’s been dealt, he’s free. 

Quackity smiles, and even he can feel the hysteria in it. But he’s not going to panic, he’s not going to lose his nerve. He _wants_ this. 

“So much more than I ever wanted you, motherfucker,” he whispers, staring down at the still-sleeping body beneath him. 

A sharp surge of glee fills him. He laughs as the knife descends.

**Author's Note:**

> this was written at 12:48 am and i am not vibing with the way it turned out but have it anyway. also i'm totally not trying to ignore the fact that i'm not caught up on lore by simply writing about previous arcs; of course not. *nervous laughter*
> 
> thank you for reading! feel free to check out my other fics and i hope you enjoyed :)


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